Pollution brings end to Oklahoma mining town

[Beartracks]

Pollution brings end to Oklahoma mining town

PICHER, Okla. - They could pass for mourners at a funeral.

They line up along the main drag in front of empty cafes and shops and rusted mining equipment fenced off with barbed wire. Passing time, some from this blue-jean crowd press hands and foreheads against windows of stores. Businesses that died so many years ago it's hard to remember what they sold.

...

When the lead and zinc mines all around here closed down, many folks told themselves and promised their kids that Picher could go on and even be the same. There would always be church, high school football and the Dairy Queen.

But that was nearly 40 years ago, and all the praying and wishful thinking can't undo what's happened here. People are leaving, escaping the reality of life in one of the worst environmental nightmares in the country. A voluntary federal buyout is hastening the exodus.

This is a town's last stand.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24555711/

[Catch22Dem]

1. Sad.

These old towns have so much character.

[coriolis]

2. 6 people were killed by tornados in Picher last night (5/10/08)

talk about irony

edit for link
http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=8306515

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Story on CNN -- 150 injured, unknown number missing.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/11/severe.weather/index.html

[depakid]

3. Boom bust + a toxic legacy

The town of Picher, Okla., is nestled among huge lead-laced piles of rock.
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For years, before most knew better...

:wtf:

...the gravel-coated piles doubled as sledding hills for kids, a Lover's Lane for teenagers and a makeshift proving grounds for dirt bikes and the high school's track team.

It will take at least 15 more years to haul the stuff off, for use in highway construction projects, but that's not soon enough.

The polluted dust that blows through every nook of this place has already affected a generation.

n the 1990s, a study found elevated blood lead levels in Tar Creek-area children, and teachers began noticing years ago that students were learning more slowly and couldn't focus.

"Don't Put Lead in Your Head," says a sign still hanging next to City Hall, showing a drawing of a smiling child.



Adults suffered, too. Natives like John Sparkman began having high blood pressure in their 20s. He lost his sister to Lou Gehrig's disease when she was 41, and would lay odds pollution caused it.

"I would've liked to have seen the town located somewhere else, but no one wanted to see it happen," says Sparkman, who works for the town housing authority. "It should've ended in the 1960s."
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Economists coldly call these sorts of deals "externalities." True costs of production that don't get covered in the corporations balance sheets.